How do you know if there is an audience for a book about a topic that you want to write about? After you spend months writing a book, how will you know that there will be readers to buy it? Steve Scott, whose series of habit books consistently put him at the top of the…
Author Tips
Tips for entrepreneurial authors.
Should I use initials as an author pen name?
A number of authors use their initials instead of their full name on the covers of their books. It is especially common among authors of fiction. So, when considering whether to use my initials instead of my first name for works of fiction, I wanted to do some quick research. Here are a few reasons…
Author Ken Liu on Goal Setting
While I am reading a book, I like to listen to and read interviews with the authors to find their advice on writing and the lessons they have learned about being authors. So, after I read the short story, “Paper Menagerie,” I went looking for interviews with the author Ken Liu. I found his writing…
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories Feel Real
I am spending some time this month reading the award-winning and nominated science fiction and fantasy short stories (Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Locus Awards). I look at is as research for writing my own short stories in those genres. I realize as I read these stories that one of the things that makes them so…
Shawn Coyne’s Five Elements of a Story
Every writer should read Shawn Coyne’s The Story Grid. Of the many things I gained from the book, the one take-away that stands out a few years later is his five elements of a story. I have used these five elements to write articles, tell stories in keynote speeches, and plan out short stories. Once…
